Traditionally enterprises are comprised of various nodes that contribute to an overall business process. An enterprise may be thought of as a geographically dispersed network under the jurisdiction of one organization. It often includes several different types of networks and computer systems from different vendors.
These network nodes that are part of the enterprise may be comprised of both physical and virtual machines. Enterprise networks that include a plurality of virtual machines may require a physical host, which is required to allocate resources among the virtual machines.
Groups of network nodes included in the enterprise may form business process application service groups (BASGs). The “components” of these groups are comprised of virtual machines, hosts, storage devices and network devices. Each of these components may be dependent on one another. In an operational enterprise environment, enterprise nodes change dynamically. For instance, nodes are configured, re-configured, migrated, placed off-line, and may experience varying changes throughout the life of the node.
Enterprise network nodes naturally, or, by way of network design, form groups of nodes that perform a business process. These groups are referred to as business process application service groups (BASGs). The components of these groups are comprised of virtual machines, hosts, storage devices, and network devices. It is the responsibility of virtual administrators to predict how the virtual machines will perform in a particular network environment. If it were possible to simulate a virtual machine's interaction with a BASG then it would also be reasonable to make predictions regarding the simulated virtual machines impact on the operating service group.